On March 28, 2024, Russia vetoed the extension of the mandate of the UN panel of experts to monitor the sanctions against the DPRK until April 30, 2025. This is important, because according to the established procedure, the decision to extend the term of office of the so-called 1718 Sanctions Committee must be made by April 30, otherwise it will be unable to continue with its activities…

In late March 2024, South Korea marked the 10th anniversary of the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan corvette near the western maritime boundary between North and South Korea. The March 26, 2010 tragedy claimed the lives of 46 out of the 104 sailors on board and was also politically significant, as it changed the course of relations between the two Koreas. After some deliberation the south Korean authorities announced that the corvette was sunk by a North Korean stealth midget submarine. This announcement triggered a further deterioration…

Japan and North Korea do not currently have any diplomatic relations, but Tokyo periodically tries to gain political capital by attempting to establish a dialog with Pyongyang. The most successful such attempt occurred in 2002, when, in a meeting with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, DPRK leader Kim Jong Il admitted that 13 Japanese citizens had been abducted by North Korea’s intelligence services…

Contrary to the anticipation of anti-Pyongyang propaganda discussed in the previous part of this digest, there have been no direct provocations, including in the area of the disputed maritime border. Instead, the North conducted its own exercise and criticized the enemy’s. Already on the day the exercise began, March 4, a DPRK Ministry of Defense spokesman issued a press statement. “The frantic war drills by the ROK puppets and vassal forces led by the US make…

On February 10, 2024, the Lunar New Year holiday, Yoon Suk-yeol visited the Second Marine Corps Division in Gimpo, inspected the Cheonmoo multiple rocket launcher system, and urged troops to be prepared for any North Korean provocations. “If the enemy provokes, you have to sternly and overwhelmingly respond under the principle of ‘act first, report later’ to completely crush the enemy’s will.”…

According to media reports, at least 11 officials of the ROK Election Commission (4 of them high-ranking officials, including Secretary General Park Chan Chin, his deputy Song Bong-sup, and former Secretary General Kim Se Hwan) facilitated the improper employment of their children in government agencies affiliated with the Election Commission or its regional divisions: in an interview with his father’s colleagues, Kim Se Hwan’s son received near-perfect scores.

It will soon be 10 years since the publication of South Korea’s review of the state of human rights in the DPRK, which, thanks to its uncritical treatment of sources, turned out to be “much ado about not very much”. 10 years later, on February 6, 2024, South Korea’s Ministry for Unification presented what it considered to be a serious report, Perceptions of the Current Socioeconomic Situation in the DPRK, based on the results of an analysis of surveys of 6,531 defectors who left the DPRK between 2013 and 2022…

In late January and early February, there was a local diplomatic escalation between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Korea, which, in the view of some experts, had the effect of cooling relations between the two countries by a couple of degrees. On January 19, 2024, Georgy Zinoviev, Russian Ambassador to the Republic of Korea told Russian journalists that as long as South Korea did not cross a “red line” and directly supply lethal weapons to Ukraine, Russia was ready to consider the Republic of Korea as a promising partner…

Several events directly or indirectly related to Japan, which have taken place since the beginning of 2024, provide an opportunity to reflect once again on the positioning of this country in the surrounding political space. Where its active presence is becoming more and more noticeable. First of all, there was the 7.6 magnitude undersea earthquake that occurred on 1 January 2024 near the Noto Peninsula on the west coast of Honshu Island. In terms of magnitude…

Will Fumio Kishida be able to abandon his harsh rhetoric against Pyongyang and strengthen his popularity with Japanese voters, or is he counting on favour from the DPRK leadership? Not even a few months have passed since the Japanese Defence Ministry’s threatening statements to Pyongyang over North Korea’s test launch of a ballistic missile towards the Sea of Japan on January 14 this year. “The DPRK’s actions threaten the peace and security of our country, the region and the world. Such ballistic missile launches violate UN Security Council resolutions and pose a serious problem,”…

The 10th session of the Fourteenth National People’s Congress of the DPRK, is best known for its radical reversal of the policy on relations between North and South Korean. However, specialists may also find some of the other issues discussed during the session to be of interest. In addition to the foreign policy issues discussed earlier, in his speech, “On the Next Tasks for the Prosperity and Development of the Republic and the Improvement of the People’s Welfare” Kim Jong-un made…

The military and political section of Kim Jong-un’s keynote speech began by summing up the current situation. “Far from improving, the security situation of our state has continued to deteriorate day by day, and today it is facing a more serious risk of war than any other region in the world.” Therefore “preparations for the great event have become an unfortunate reality.” Kim also notes the importance of paying attention to the situation in the Middle East. “The deputies present at this session should not consider the horrors…